Tips for small L&D teams to make a big impact
Key Takeaways 1. With an intentional, data-driven L&D strategy, even the smallest teams can deliver effective, targeted learning programs. 2. Managers play a critical role in enhancing learning efforts and supporting employee development. 3. Aligning learning objectives with the organization’s core business objectives ensures that training has a meaningful impact. 4. Leveraging technology, such as AI-powered solutions, enables efficient L&D teams to accomplish more with less.
Learning and development (L&D) is an important part of any organization. No matter the size or structure of your company, L&D drives success by increasing productivity, boosting morale, and contributing to the bottom line.
But what if you’re part of a small team? What if you’re a single HR professional juggling multiple roles? For small and medium-sized businesses, a fully fleshed out L&D program may feel out of reach.
it’s not. You don’t need a huge budget or specialized department to build a breakthrough program. Litmos’ e-book, L&D Made Easy! A Guide to Impactful Lean L&D, is your roadmap to Lean L&D. This eBook shows you how to create effective learning experiences that meet your organization’s needs without wasting time or resources.
This article summarizes and highlights the guide and provides actionable insights for small L&D teams looking to make big changes.
What is “Lean” L&D?
We often hear the word “lean” in business settings, but what does it mean to make learning lean?
Lean thinking is an agile methodology. It’s about reducing waste and achieving tightly focused business goals. It also means that organizations are constantly experimenting, trying to reduce waste and achieve their goals more efficiently.
Because of this, Lean L&D focuses on an organization’s business objectives. Generate exactly the learning you need to achieve your goals, and nothing you don’t.
This doesn’t mean that organizations only create compliance content to check a box. This means your team is resourceful and intentionally creating learning content that achieves your business goals.
How to build a lean L&D program
By design, effective Lean L&D is tailored to your organization. This means you can’t just start creating content right away. It’s important to understand exactly what your goals, resources are, and how best to use those resources to achieve your organization’s goals.
start with a plan
Planning is always important, but if you’re working in a small organization or on a tight budget, it’s important to have a plan in place.
Some training is lean in nature, such as mandated regulatory compliance. It is necessary and we cannot do without it. However, for the remaining services, you should start with some research. Because Lean L&D programs are built to meet the needs of learners, they require a long and deep look at the organization, existing learning, and its limitations.
L&D Made Easy has a list of questions to help you start this process.
Identify your biggest business challenges
Do you know why you’re building your training program? If you don’t, you may not be able to create an effective L&D program.
Treat your organization as if it were a customer. Really research the problems this study can solve and the goals you need to achieve with it. This may mean that you need to dig deep into your organization’s business challenges by looking at data and talking to colleagues from different departments to clearly define what’s most important to your business.
It’s important to keep an open mind. Even if you think increasing sales is your top priority, you may find that your business’ biggest challenge is retaining staff.
Once you define these challenges, you can build learning objectives that align with your business needs.
Get company leaders involved
Leaders must always be involved in learning. Especially if you take a lean approach to L&D. Senior leaders should be involved in program planning from the beginning of the process. Leaders are strategists and are deeply in tune with the organization’s needs, limitations, and future goals. Great leaders think two or three steps ahead and imagine how their L&D program can evolve to meet future training needs.
There’s another practical reason to incorporate leadership into your L&D plans. They hold the purse strings. When leaders are involved in L&D planning, they can prioritize access to resources rather than being asked to allocate funds late in the planning process.
How does Lean L&D support skills-based organizations?
Skills-based organizations, which focus on a collection of skills rather than job descriptions, are becoming increasingly common. This is a lean approach to work because focusing frees workers from the constraints of their roles and allows them to tackle tasks that they have the skills to handle.
But this approach to the job can seem overwhelming for L&D professionals who aren’t sure what skills to train in the workforce. How does this work in a lean learning approach?
The answer is to be cautious. You can’t train every skill, but you can provide some of the most durable ones. Also, not all skills are suitable for L&D content. Deliver what makes the most sense. Don’t try to boil the ocean.
Start small with Lean L&D
When you’re building a program, it’s tempting to try to do everything, but that’s not what Lean methodology is about. In many cases, you assemble the airplane while you are flying it.
This means you need to start with the most important learning objectives, build on that learning first, and take the time to get it right. Once you start piloting your L&D initiative, you can iterate on your learning content to reflect feedback or add additional functionality.
Your manager is your most important ally
When it comes to increasing training, managers are your secret weapon. Because they are with learners every day, they use coaching to back up their training and help learners reach their goals. This is especially important in Lean L&D. No matter the size of your company, there will always be a manager.
Expand L&D with technology
When approaching Lean L&D, leveraging technology is key. Artificial technology (AI) learning solutions allow you to automate repetitive tasks so your team can focus on creative work and problem-solving. This is a power multiplier for small L&D teams. Technology helps lean teams accomplish more with fewer resources.
Let’s take an example from Litmos’ AI Learning Assistant. It’s a conversational natural language search interface that uses generative AI to quickly find information. Administrators and learners can ask questions about content and receive answers with quotes.
Instead of browsing courses or searching for information yourself, the AI shows you the information quickly. You can then recommend, assign, or track the learner’s progress in that course.
Lean learning drives purposeful change
The Litmos eBook “L&D Made Easy” is a resource-driven guide to learning design. No matter how small your team or what your business goals, it’s possible to deliver effective learning content.
A lean L&D strategy, executed correctly, is an intentional way to build learning content. Take the time to learn about the most important skill gaps, discuss with key stakeholders, and create learning objectives that will help you achieve your company’s business goals.
Lean L&D means leveraging resources such as managers to enhance learning. It also means looking for technologies that can help you do more with less, such as training tools that provide actionable learning data and artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities.
By adopting a lean methodology and leveraging the right tools, organizations of all sizes can build sustainable and effective L&D strategies. Ready to give it a try? Connect with Litmos today and explore how our solutions can help you accelerate performance and drive real revenue impact.
Read more: Originally published on www.litmos.com
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